warped quadrajet

I sent Lars an email about my carb yesterday before i signed up, he hasn't replyed yet and it's no rush but after reading almost all of his post it's sounding like he doesn't mess with them much anymore. So i thought i would go ahead and post my request to continue the quest of getting my carb fixed up.

the fuel bowl and air horn are warped other than that it's perfect as far as i can tell. Is there a way to fix this myself? does the "barker un-warping tool" work has anyone tried using it? Are there other proper ways to fix this? any insight would be great and any recommendations will be investigated.

How 'warped' is it? When you set one of the bowl splitlines on a flat surface, how much does it rock? You can use some feeler gauges to fit in the largest gap to steady it; that will tell you have much flatness error is present.

Call Cliff...I spoke with him a while back and he mentioned there are ways to correct warping. I agree though that it most likely depends on how badly it is warped to start with that will determine the outcome. Slight warps are fixable, especially in the horn. I've also heard that thicker gaskets can be used between the horn and the casting to compensate for slight warping.

I sent Lars an email about my carb yesterday before i signed up, he hasn't replyed yet and it's no rush but after reading almost all of his post it's sounding like he doesn't mess with them much anymore. So i thought i would go ahead and post my request to continue the quest of getting my carb fixed up.

the fuel bowl and air horn are warped other than that it's perfect as far as i can tell. Is there a way to fix this myself? does the "barker un-warping tool" work has anyone tried using it? Are there other proper ways to fix this? any insight would be great and any recommendations will be investigated.

Call Cliff...I spoke with him a while back and he mentioned there are ways to correct warping. I agree though that it most likely depends on how badly it is warped to start with that will determine the outcome. Slight warps are fixable, especially in the horn. I've also heard that thicker gaskets can be used between the horn and the casting to compensate for slight warping.

thanks for the link Steve i just sent an email to them asking about the warpage. I got the horn pretty straight but i don't know how to get the bowl straight, there are spots that are as much as 1/16" off.

If they are that far off, they were probably that way from the factory. Those parts are die-cast. If they are not cooled properly in the mold, the metal will still be a bit soft and handling of the part can cause it to sag/warp. Ten thousandths of an inch [.010"] out-of-flat can be sanded flat by placing a sheet of sandpaper on a very flat surface (laminated counter top, etc.) and working the surface over the paper. But, it's a real question whether a part with 1/16" error will be serviceable with that much material removed....and it has to be flat on the top and bottom. It sure doesn't hurt to try it, other than the loss of some assembly time. You may still end up throwing that piece away...but, you might get lucky.

Hey forget about it.... Quardajetcaburetors.com can unwarp your Qjet for 100 bucks and their process claim not to warp again. I guess their unwarping jig and heat tempering process make the casting tougher.
Worked for me !!!!! Even had their stainless steel w/7% bushing install for a 100 bucks. Saved me 200.... Fast service and great price !!!!!

Hey forget about it.... Quardajetcaburetors.com can unwarp your Qjet for 100 bucks and their process claim not to warp again. I guess their unwarping jig and heat tempering process make the casting tougher.
Worked for me !!!!! Even had their stainless steel w/7% bushing install for a 100 bucks. Saved me 200.... Fast service and great price !!!!!

If you would have gone to my site you would have seen we are a very, very small shop of one. We wont get rich on 10 carbs a month but we will be able to eat. In this thread I feel I must defend the bogus info surrounding the warpage of a Qjet by educating those who seek this knowledge. Dennis Barker is the man who invented the unwarping process along with his formally manufactured Quadrajet unwarping tool some 43 years ago. Dennis was a minor contributor to Cliff's latest book and did not receive any acknowledgement for his efforts. That book is loaded with good info but too technical for the average guy who needs a step-by-step book. Cliff and Dennis have from time to time over the decades sought out each other’s thoughts regarding Qjet issues. We gave Cliff one of our unwarping tools but we only heard from him a couple of times afterwards. Nothing against Cliff. We were under the impression that Cliff was retiring in '08, maybe he hasn't. Our understanding was a Cliff is proponent of flat filing as with others.... WRONG !!! When we debuted our tool at SEMA in '05 2 senior Quadrajet engineers told us they knew the carbs would warp but as you might guess management in that era builds cars to sell, not to last. The engineers confirmed that if the carb bodies could have been heat treated they would have been very tough and NOT have warped ! The engineers laughed loudly when I asked about their thought on flat filing… Then gave us some technical reason why flat filing would turn your Qjet into scrap. We gave each a tool and a bunch of a stainless steel w/7% lead bushing kits. Later they called and said our tool was great!! Yeah, too bad they had to warp first. So the bottom line is that we are the only ones in the world with thee properly engineered unwarping tool. Ok so maybe your an owner of one of 100 we produced… We had no trouble selling them for 900 bucks !!
If you’re not unwarping your Qjet your not rebuilding it correctly… period !!! Yes our bushing are cheaper and vastly superior.
Thanks for your time,

thanks for the link Steve i just sent an email to them asking about the warpage. I got the horn pretty straight but i don't know how to get the bowl straight, there are spots that are as much as 1/16" off.

Shelby

How did you get it straight...? I have unwarped bodies as much as 3/8 of and inch !!

nothing against your service, you are a new name around here. people on these forums are familiar with Lars and Cliffs, its not a slight on your service.
there are many people that rebuild quadrajets and do a lousy job it will take some time but you should be fine once a few people use your service. most of the issues here surround performance enhancements to make the engine run right , as emissions tuning ruined these cars performance, if that isn't something you offer your going to limit your business.
I've worked on quadrajets and have had luck making them work well. the best description I've heard is they are a gadget. profanity would be required for what i think of them.
i wish you luck i hope you do well. keep posting and the word will spread. btw i did look at your website.

i sent my carb to Cliff shortly after my last post and he fixed it.....it's bad *** now. it has a manual choke and i dont even have to touch the throttle and it will start after months of sitting. as soon as gas touches the carb it starts. there was a bunch of stuff wrong supposedly, it was 500 to fix it i was pissed but i don"t care now....it's bad ***.

Just because someone 'claims' to have talked to some Rochester engineers (how many are still alive?) and they "laughed at the thought of 'machine' flattening some light warping", doesn't mean that it's true.

If someone were to heat a die-cast zinc part hot enough to "bend" it straight, what do you think happens to the flat surface on the bottom of the part? Well, of course, it "bends" to compensate for the part shape change. So, the warping is just transferred to another surface on the part.

Under .020" of warping: straighten it up.

Over .020" of warping: scrap and replace the part... OR try this new "de-warping" service, if you want.

Just because someone 'claims' to have talked to some Rochester engineers (how many are still alive?) and they "laughed at the thought of 'machine' flattening some light warping", doesn't mean that it's true.

If someone were to heat a die-cast zinc part hot enough to "bend" it straight, what do you think happens to the flat surface on the bottom of the part? Well, of course, it "bends" to compensate for the part shape change. So, the warping is just transferred to another surface on the part.

Under .020" of warping: straighten it up.

Over .020" of warping: scrap and replace the part... OR try this new "de-warping" service, if you want.

Have even heard of SEMA ? As far the Qjet engineers they knew all along the bodies would and we suspected as much. We spoke with Vic at the SEMA ‘06 and he was very interested in carrying our line of unwarping tools but he was phasing out the qjet. The manufacture in Italy up the minimum order form 4,000 to 20,000 so Vic just drop the Qjets. There might be some models left in his inventory you might find but that killed our chance to be in the Edelbrock catalog… Based on your rant here you do not have clue about metallurgy and knowledge of injection modeling of the material and the process of tempering or our propriety unwarping process. There or a few guys who have figured out the correct way to uawarp the bodies in particular the fuel bowl with cracking it. We have been unwarping Qjet with 100% success rate. Why don’t you ask Cliff about our unwarping tool we gave him back in ’09. He could not say enough about it. By the way that info in the book of scarping a way warp body is way off base. Ya know it’s like the Qjet racers… we thought we could break into the racer market but what we found was that not only were our clients winning with unheard performance from a qjet but just blowing to doors of their competitors but none of the guys would spread the word. And why would they give up their “secret”… right? Listen if you’re worried about a .020” that ain’t nothing… Like I said we have unwarped fuel bodies over 3/8 “ (.383) !!!